


Counterfeit

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Illusions, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Practice Kissing, Pre-Canon, Rough Kissing, Sibling Incest, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 14:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13078878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Loki might as well be lifting a hand to gesture Thor into a fight, to draw him towards a battle he himself is clearly not afraid of; it’s enough to latch into the knot of competitiveness at the top of Thor’s spine and wrench him forward on something more reckless instinct than conscious decision." The princes of Asgard take an opportunity to practice the illusion of romance and find appearances to be more compelling than expected.





	Counterfeit

“I believe I fail to fully grasp the difficulty,” Loki says from the other side of the room, where he’s lounging by the doorway. “Which part of this are you hung up on again?”

“All of it,” Thor answers, his voice dragging rough onto the beginnings of frustration at repeating himself. He turns on his heel as he comes up on the corner of the room, pivoting to glare at his brother as if that’s likely to add any force at all to his words. “We can’t do this with each other.”

Loki lifts one delicate eyebrow nearly to the hairline of golden curls far more reminiscent of Thor’s own than of Loki’s natural coloring. “We can indeed,” he drawls. “If you are that confused about the mechanics I’d say you need practice more than ever.”

“It is not the  _mechanics_  I’m concerned with,” Thor fires back. “The premise of kissing is hardly a complex one, brother.”

Crimson lips twist on a smirk that is all Loki, even framed in the context of someone else’s face. “Spoken like someone in  _dire_  need of personal experience of the same.”

“As if you have any yourself,” Thor snaps, striding forward across the distance between himself and Loki’s illusion-masked face. “You lack the least idea of where to begin with this.”

“At least I am willing to put in the effort to change that,” Loki offers back without so much as a tracery of irritation in his voice, without so much as a flutter of alarm in his eyes. Thor wonders if he’s illusioning the signs of nerves away from his expression or if he really is so calm. Probably the latter, however little comfort that may be to Thor in this moment. “We discussed this at some length. Are you really going to balk on this point now because of some absurd prudishness?”

“ _Absurd_ ,” Thor repeats, gasping over the word with the beginnings of offense in the back of his throat. “My unwillingness to kiss my  _brother_  is hardly  _absurd_ , Loki.”

“For  _practice_ ,” Loki says, speaking slowly as if Thor is too much of an idiot to understand hastier speech. “While I bear someone else’s face.” His mouth twists, his throat works; when he speaks his tone is higher, the words going soft and breathless in a far more feminine tone than he usually bears.  “I could borrow another voice, too, if you would prefer.”

Thor makes a face and reaches out to push against Loki’s shoulder. “Cut it out,” he growls. “I hate it when you do that. You don’t seem like you.”

“I’m not  _supposed_  to seem like me,” Loki informs him while he’s still stumbling to the side under the force of Thor’s push. “I’m supposed to seem like some fragile young thing who for some unknowable reason is willing to let you practice kissing on her. So that if the time comes that someone  _does_  want to kiss you you don’t screw everything up and traumatize some poor girl.”

“ _When_ ,” Thor corrects him with some force. “ _When_  someone wants to kiss me.”

“Of course,” Loki says. “And when that time comes won’t you be glad you took the advice of your favorite brother?” He tips his head to the side and bats the weight of heavy lashes over eyes the color of a summer sky.

Thor gives him a flat look. “You are my only brother, Loki.”

“And therefore your favorite,” Loki says. He drops his hand from where he’s toying with a curl of gold hair and straightens into something closer to his usual posture instead of the overly feminine allure he’s been trying to put on. “If the great Thor, Prince of Asgard, has lost his nerve--”

“I have not _lost my nerve_ ,” Thor snaps, and steps forward to prove the point. Loki just tips his head up to gaze at him, looking categorically unimpressed as if he’s seeing right through all the bravado Thor can muster. Thor presses his lips together tight and frowns hard at Loki before him; Loki raises an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth at once, the gesture as clearly taunting as words would be if he even bothered to give voice to any. He might as well be lifting a hand to gesture Thor into a fight, to draw him towards a battle he himself is clearly not afraid of; it’s enough to latch a knot of competitiveness at the top of Thor’s spine and wrench him forward on something more reckless instinct than conscious decision.

“Fine,” he says. “ _Fine_ ” and he reaches out, and grabs at a handful of those golden curls, and drags Loki forward hard as he squeezes his eyes shut even as his fingers fall through the sparking green of illusion to catch at the back of the other’s head. Thor ducks forward fast, moving in a rush of adrenaline more than levelheaded thought; and promptly crushes his lip hard against the edge of Loki’s teeth as their mouths misalign with bruising force. Thor hisses, Loki yelps, and there’s a shove at Thor’s chest as Loki pushes him away hard enough to break free of the other’s hold on the back of his head.

“ _Ow_ ,” Loki snaps, lifting a hand to touch to his mouth. “Is that your idea of not traumatizing someone? I think I’m bleeding.”

“Sorry,” Thor growls. He can feel his face heating with embarrassment. “I have never done this before.”

“That’s evident,” Loki says. “You might as well have hit me with that hammer you like so much, it would probably have hurt less.”

“I told you I was sorry,” Thor snaps. His lip hurts where Loki’s teeth crushed against it; his whole face is burning with self-consciousness. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

“No,” Loki says, drawing his hand away from his mouth and curling his fingers in against his palm. “No, this was a  _very necessary_  idea. I can’t leave you alone to inflict yourself on others if that’s your idea of romance.” He tosses his hair back and huffs an exhale. “Let’s try that once more. Slowly, this time.”

Thor grimaces, leaving the protest clear in his expression rather than trying to fit it to the shape of words; but he steps back in anyway, moving with syrup slowness in half-mocking obedience to Loki’s command. Loki just watches him, his chin tipped down and illusion-blue eyes fixed on Thor; it’s uncanny to see the familiarity of that unimpressed expression cast into a stranger’s face, uncomfortable to have the tight line of unvoiced judgment clinging to lips soft with painted fullness instead of the familiar pale of Loki’s mouth. Thor makes a face as he steps in closer, his mouth twisting over the uncomfortable awareness of Loki’s illusion.

“Take it off,” Thor says, lifting his hand to gesture vaguely at the entirety of the wide-eyed beauty Loki has illusioned himself into. “It’s too strange when I know it’s you.”

Blue eyes roll, painted lips part on a huff. “You didn’t  _want_  to remember it was me,” Loki points out. “What exactly is it you’re looking for here? Do you want the illusion or not?”

“It’s too different,” Thor grumbles. “I can tell it’s an illusion, it doesn’t feel right” as he reaches out to wave his hand through the artistry of golden curls that melt away before the weight of his fingers. “Take the hair away. Or make it darker, at least.”

Loki’s mouth tenses, his expression shimmering as his illusion delays a moment in following the shift of his face beneath it; but whatever protest he might want to give goes unvoiced, as around Thor’s fingers illusion dissolves away to leave his touch hanging in midair over a sheaf of dark hair instead. It’s still some kind of a disguise -- Loki surely has never let his hair grow out to the small of his back like that -- but it’s the right color, at least, and when Thor presses his hand in against the weight of it it shifts as it should, as his fingers pass through illusion to run up against the reality of Loki’s hair.

Thor sighs as some measure of his discomfort eases. “Better,” he says. “Change your eyes too.” Green light shimmers, details flicker like motes of dust in sunlight, and the shading of brilliant blue behind dark lashes eases, shifting out of the unnatural saturation of color and into the paler, softer green of Loki’s natural eye color. The paint at his mouth fades away too, evaporating as quickly as Thor looks for it; artificial softness melts away, giving over to a tension that Thor knows all too well from previous arguments with his brother. There’s still an added weight of shadow against Loki’s lashes, still the hint of a dimple at his lower lip that Thor is sure was never there in reality; but it’s enough, at least, as if Loki has simply touched his features with the suggestion of femininity rather than formed himself an entirely invented persona.

“Good,” Thor says; and then, with a flash of his teeth into a grin, “You make a very pretty sister, Loki.”

Loki’s mouth tightens, his eyes harden; when he jerks back the illusion of his hair flickers as Thor’s fingers pass through it. “I could cast the illusion on you instead, if you’d prefer.”

Thor laughs, holding both his hands palm-up in a sign of surrender. “If you like,” he says. “Do as you will, if it will comfort you. This is fine for me.” He takes a step back in over the distance Loki has retreated; when he reaches back out for that weight of dark hair he sets his fingers higher, where they can curl against the soft of reality instead of illusion. “Thank you.” Loki’s eyes widen a little, just for a moment; and Thor takes advantage of the other’s surprise to lean forward and press his lips far more gently to Loki’s.

It’s softer, this time. There’s still some awkwardness -- Thor’s nose bumps hard against Loki’s, their mouths seem misplaced against each other -- but there’s none of the bruising hurt, none of the jolt of pain that pulled Loki away before. Thor blinks, feeling his heart pick up pace in his chest at the relative success of this, at the awareness of someone else’s mouth against his, at the surprising softness of Loki’s lips pressing to his own; and then hands close at the sides of his head, and Loki pulls away with a huff of frustration.

“Not like that,” he snaps, and his hands pull hard to move Thor’s head forcibly to the side, to angle him into a strange tilt in opposition to his usual posture. “You have to fit against each other.” And he’s leaning back in, closing the distance between them himself to press his mouth to Thor’s. It’s better, he’s right; their noses miss each other this time, the angle lets them press far closer together than they could get before, and their mouths seem to fit together better too, as Loki huffs a breath through his nose and relaxes under the brace of Thor’s hand at the back of his head. Thor can feel heat against his mouth, something sticky and clinging against his bottom lip when he tries to shift; he pulls away again, blinking hard in confusion as he lifts his fingers to touch against his mouth.

“What…?” he starts, confusion speaking for him more than coherency; and then he looks down, and sees the red against his fingers.

“I’m bleeding,” Loki says. His voice is strange, a little tight in the back of his throat and straining like he’s struggling for the words; there’s color rising across his pale cheeks to match, a heat Thor suspects to be more natural than illusioned. “You split my lip that first time when you--” and then Thor lifts his hand to touch against Loki’s mouth, and Loki’s words die as if cut off under a knife.

“Let me see,” Thor says. Under his touch color melts away, illusioned softness disintegrating to the texture of his fingertips; and then it’s just Loki’s mouth under his touch, tension-tight lips and winter-pale skin marked over with a smear of red seeping from the fast-swelling damage of Thor’s first too-rough approach. Thor presses his thumb against the color and makes a face. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Loki says. His tone is sharp, the words frostbite cold, but he’s not jerking away as Thor half-expected him to. The pull of the words draws his lip to motion under Thor’s thumb. “Better me than someone you actually wanted to kiss, anyway.”

Thor looks up. Loki’s staring at him now, the full weight of his gaze cast against Thor’s face. The shadow from his lashes has given way along with the weight of his hair; he must have let his illusion over the rest of him go at the same time he revealed the bruise at his mouth. There’s something strange behind his eyes, a cringing hurt as if Thor’s touch at his lips is hurting him more than it possibly can, as if he’s trying to keep the pain back from his features; the usually pale color of his cheeks is flushed to red as if with a fever, as if some measure of the crimson seeping from his lip is echoed across the high arch of his cheekbones. His mouth sets as Thor’s gaze meets his, his jaw tightens; Thor can feel the motion of it under his hand, as if he can sense Loki’s intent to pull away before it’s even happened.

“Brother,” Thor says, hearing his voice rumble with the weight of possibility, with the burden of words he doesn’t know yet how to frame; and then he’s leaning forward into the expectation of that silence, tipping himself in to cut off whatever he might say with the heat of his mouth instead. He slides his thumb away as he ducks in, shifting his hand in to cup against the line of Loki’s jaw instead of over the give of the other’s lips, and he doesn’t need the tension of Loki’s fingers clinging to his hair to guide him this time. He comes in slow, gently, as carefully as he can; when his mouth touches Loki’s he can feel the tension in the other’s body give way like ice melting to the sun, like illusion disintegrating before his fingers. Thor’s hand in Loki’s hair slides back to cup against the back of the other’s head, his fingers at Loki’s jaw dip down to brace at the side of the other’s neck, and when he moves his mouth it’s to part his lips so he can touch his tongue against the red at Loki’s mouth as if to ease away the hurt he did with his first too-much haste. Loki makes a weird, strained sound in the back of his throat, something of a whimper with near-pain lacing over the effort of it; but he’s opening his mouth instead of jerking away, and that feels more like encouragement than otherwise.

Thor steadies his hand at Loki’s neck, and tips his head in to press closer, and when he moves it’s to lick in against the heat of the other’s mouth, to taste against the give of Loki’s tongue against his. There’s an almost-metallic taste at the back of his mouth, the iron of blood from the cut at Loki’s mouth or maybe a suggestion of silver, as if to turn the mockery of Loki’s nickname to reality; but then Loki tips his head in, and meets Thor’s advance with one of his own, and all the faint traceries of metal give way to the rush of heat that unfolds itself into Thor’s blood and whips electric down the whole of his spine. Thor takes a step in, urging closer when there is nowhere for him to go; and Loki falls back, half-stumbling as he retreats, as Thor pushes him back across the floor. They run up against the wall alongside the door, Thor’s hand at the back of Loki’s head to protect him from the impact and Loki’s hands curling to fists at Thor’s hair, at Thor’s shirt, holding them as close together as they can fit. Thor presses in closer, pinning Loki back against the wall behind him, crushing them nearer with the rough force of instinct tensing through his body, and against him Loki is melting like he’s fitting himself to the shape of Thor against him, like he’s remaking himself into the other’s perfect complement. His tongue is sliding in against Thor’s mouth, heat and friction and movement dizzying in their combination; and Thor seizes a breath, and jerks back as he comes back to himself in a rush that brings with it a gasp as if of a drowning man surfacing into fresh air.

“Loki,” he says, his voice raw and rough on something he’s never heard in his own tone before, something that seems to spark up the whole of his spine as if lightning seething under his skin. His hands tighten against Loki’s hair, his thumb slides in hard against the rush of the other’s pulse in his throat, and Thor hears himself gasp a breath and tries to hold to that, tries to fix himself to that single point of coherency. “I.” He presses his lips together and swallows hard; his mouth tastes unfamiliar, hot and metallic and sweet all at once, like he still carries the influence of Loki’s tongue against his own. “That’s enough.”

Loki shudders an exhale. It quavers as if with cold, as if he’s shivering, as if Thor can’t feel his skin burning with heat at every point they touch. “We are in agreement on that,” he says. “You’re a faster learner than I expected you to be, brother.” There’s a pause, a moment while Thor listens to the rasp of Loki’s breathing tangling with his own; and then: “Are you intending to hold me here until the next lesson, or…?”

Thor shoves away at once, moving so hard he stumbles and nearly falls with his balance as shaky as it proves to be. In front of him Loki ducks his head, the motion casting his face into shadow for a moment; and then light sweeps over him, illusion settles itself around him like a veil, and when he lifts his head he looks utterly composed, from the level attention behind his eyes to the set of his mouth. His shoulders are relaxed, his expression is calm; even his hair is smoothed back as if to hide the marks of Thor’s fingers against the strands. When he unfolds from the wall it’s a languid, fluid movement, as if he had simply chosen to recline there instead of been forced against it by Thor’s advance; when he lifts his hand from his side the motion is as graceful, a gesture to sweep through the space between them as he turns towards the door with a smirk starting at his unmarked mouth.

“You’ll get the hang of it soon,” he says. “Maybe next time you can make contact without drawing blood to ease your way.” His hand lands at Thor’s shoulder, the weight of it a mockery of reassurance; Thor lifts a hand to push Loki off him but the other is drawing back already, his voice spilling into a laugh as he turns away towards the door. “I’ll await your will, brother.” And he’s pulling the door open and slipping outside, leaving Thor alone in the echoing quiet of his room.

It takes Thor a moment to collect himself. His heart is still racing in his chest, his breath is still coming faster than he can explain; there’s a heat flaring in his veins, the prickle of something he doesn’t want to look at too closely, doesn’t want to give the name of  _desire_  it deserves. Not that it’s any surprise, he tells himself as he steps in towards the wall, as he reaches out to press a hand to the support of it and leans in to brace his forehead against the cool. Loki had cast himself in the illusion of a beautiful woman, had in fact created his appearance precisely to Thor’s demands. No wonder that Thor should react like this, no surprise that he should feel so undone by the heat yet clinging to his lips, by the electricity still hot against his tongue. But when Thor turns to brace his shoulders against the wall and let himself slide to the floor it’s not golden curls he’s thinking of, it’s not the curve of feminine lips under his he recalls; he’s thinking of the stick of blood, and the taste of silver, and the color of heat burning fever-bright across pale cheeks.

Loki’s illusions had covered his face as he left, had granted ease to his smile and grace to his movements; but Thor can still feel the thrum of vibration against his shoulder, where Loki’s teasing touch had trembled with unmasked adrenaline, and Thor still wonders what else Loki might be hiding behind the glitter of his disguise.


End file.
